


that very specific look

by jaggedwolf



Category: The Strange Case of Starship Iris (Podcast)
Genre: Bodyswap, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-17 09:10:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16971762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaggedwolf/pseuds/jaggedwolf
Summary: Violet, Sana and Arkady explore an abandoned lab in hopes of getting ahead of the IGR for once.Instead, things get a little mixed up.





	that very specific look

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jamjar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamjar/gifts).



“I don’t like this,” Arkady muttered. She gestured for Sana and Violet to follow her into the hallway. “You two shouldn’t be here.”

Violet stopped herself from rolling her eyes. She silently followed Arkady, Sana’s footsteps softly echoing behind her.

“We’ve confirmed that it’s abandoned, and Violet’s our only scientist,” said Sana, “Also, what kind of captain would I be if I relaxed back on the ship while you two did the hard work?”

“A normal one,” answered Arkady.

Violet busied herself with taking in their surroundings as they walked, half-tuning out the other two’s conversation. The grey walls and glass doors they passed by looked so much like what she remembered from her internship that she could almost forget they were galaxies away from that planet. Standardized design for government labs was efficient. It didn’t matter how it unnerved her. 

Violet dug her nails into her palms. Yes, she was the _Rumor_ ’ _s_ only scientist, and yes, after everything with the nanites, it only made sense to take any opportunity they could to keep abreast of the IGR’s more dubious research. She needed to note details more important than interior design.

Arkady stopped, and Violet barely stopped in time to not bump into her. Arkady motioned towards her right at the pair of floor-to-ceiling glass doors. “Here we are.”

Sana and Violet stepped closer to look through the glass. A waist-high counter spanned the entire left wall of the room, papers and books strewn all over it. On the opposite wall were a series of what looked like medical pods - human-sized, roughly the same material - but none of the necessary interfaces needed for proper monitoring. Two consoles with blank screens stood in the far corner on the same side as the pods. They were switched off, no visible lights.

The contraption at the center of the room confirmed that this was nothing like any lab Violet had step foot in. A 3-foot tall glass dome inset into the tiled floor of the lab, thick black wires ran from it to both the pods and the consoles. Within it floated some kind of metal device that looked like what she imagined a motor or an engine might look like. The floating could be anti-grav or simple magnetic repulsion, perhaps? Violet pushed down a rising annoyance at her own hedging thoughts - this really wasn’t her domain, and she was throwing out pointless guesses. Sana would know better. 

“I’ve scanned the room myself. We’re clear, so our contact wasn’t lying to us,” said Arkady, pulling a door open. She rested a hand on her hip holster as she entered the empty room.

“That’s always comforting,” said Sana. “You didn’t-”

“No, I didn’t touch anything. Didn’t even stand too close, just like you asked, captain,” snarked Arkady. She made a beeline to the consoles. Her hands hovered above the keyboard and she raised her eyebrows at Sana.

“Be my guest,” said Sana dryly. She gestured for Violet to go into the room first. “I’m thinking you check out those papers while I look at the other stuff.”

“Sounds good to me,” Violet replied. She headed in, Sana following behind her. 

Sana and Arkady had been working to keep Violet between them ever since they left the ship. That much was obvious. A reasonable decision. As she walked to the counter, she idly wondered if they had talked about it, or if it was merely another unspoken understanding between them.

She had just picked up a piece of paper when a sudden loud hum reverberated through the room. Violet spun around in time to see the open lab door slam shut of its own accord, her gaze then drawn to the rapid spinning of the metal device within the glass dome. 

“This doesn’t seem great. Arkady, the consoles,” said Sana, her eyes rapidly darting between the dome and where the wires connected to its base. “Violet, try the doors.”

Arkady had already turned back to the consoles, fingers flying furiously across the keyboard. Violet made to move when a sudden dizziness came over her. She rested a hand on the counter to steady herself. “Guys?”

She blinked through blurry vision to see Sana gripping her own head in confusion and Arkady scowling furiously, the latter’s knees trembling. Violet’s legs buckled, and all she saw before unconsciousness overtook her was Sana scrabbling uselessly at the dome’s base.

* * *

Violet woke with a groan. Her eyelids felt uncannily heavy as she looked up from where she lay on her front. The glass dome took up her entire view. They were still in the lab. Shift the probabilities towards an equipment malfunction and away from the IGR swooping in to capture them. Violet made a mental note to run a quick scan on herself (and ideally on Sana and Arkady too) once they were back on the ship. No need to risk any side-effects, even if she felt perfectly fine.

Though, she’d sworn she had been back by the counter, not at the center of the room. Had her body really dragged itself to the center of the room in its last moments of consciousness? Weird. Then again, bodies got pretty weird when stressed.

God, the lab was really warm now. Whatever caused the equipment malfunction might have messed with the ventilation too. Violet’s forehead felt damp with sweat, and she moved to wipe it with her sleeve. 

Only. Her brain stuttered uncomprehendingly. Only, where she had expected to see a grey patterned sleeve, she instead saw an intricate, beautiful tattoo on brown skin. A tattoo she recognized. Sana’s tattoo. Except that didn’t make sense, because she was Violet and she was controlling this arm and she could make it do all the things that she made her own arm do, only it clearly didn’t look like her arm.

Violet scrambled to her feet with an adeptness that surprised her, and looked over herself in panic and confusion as every detail only confirmed the most ludicrous notion. The tattoos, the skin, the cargo pants, the scuffed boots, the goggles around her neck. She ran her hands over her hair to feel a ponytail instead of a short bob, the confirmation that it wasn’t a holographic disguise forced on her barely needed. 

She was in Sana’s body. That literally made no sense. Sure, the IGR had come up with nanites but there they had merely adapted Vree-Chel-Noke technology, not come up with something on their own, and that wasn’t even considering the impossibility of this situation given that memories and thoughts and hence whatever made Violet, Violet, would be in her brain, which would have to be in her own body unless the IGR had managed to pull off some really quick brain surgery but she didn’t feel any stitches on the side of her-

“Arkady?” said Arkady’s voice.

Violet spun towards the sound, pointing her finger accusingly at a confused-looking Arkady. “No, you’re Arkady. Because it’s bad enough if this has actually happened to both me and the captain, but if we’re all-”

“Violet. I admit that this is a bit of an unusual situation, but we’ll figure it out.” said Arkady’s voice in a bizarrely warm, calm tone. 

Her spiralling panic interrupted, Violet let out a sigh and nodded at Arkady-no, at Sana. Who was in Arkady’s body. 

God, this was messed up.

“Let’s check on Arkady, and then we can put our heads to figure out how that”- Sana gestured towards the glass dome, frowning -”did this to us.”

That familiar expression on Arkady’s face oddly comforted Violet, as unsettling as Sana’s unmistakable cadence coming from said face was. “Sounds like a plan.” 

Violet took a step and then stopped, suddenly off-balance. Sure, she was working with a different body, but if Sana’s muscle memory had been sufficient to get her off the floor, it should have been sufficient to take a few steps too. 

“Violet?” Sana walked up to her without an issue, proving Violet’s silently made point. 

“I'm fine, just give me a second.” Violet reached out an arm to balance herself. She squinted around the room. Everything in the room looked like she remembered, but something was off about all of it. They could deal with that later. First, Arkady.

The two of them made their way to the corner of the room, where they found Violet's body laying slumped against the counter, unmoving but breathing. Violet tried to ignore how weird it was to be looking at herself, and crouched down beside her body. Sana’s knees came up higher than Violet’s would’ve, and when Violet instinctively reached for her watch her hand found nothing but bare skin.

“Should we be worried that she's still out?” asked Sana.

“I’m the smallest. It would make sense that the dosage that knocked us all out would impact my body the hardest,” Violet answered, barely believing the words she was saying. She shrugged, an unexpected twinge of soreness running through her shoulder at the motion. “Also, I’ve mentioned this before but you really should get that shoulder checked out, Captain. Could be something more.”

“Duly noted,” said Sana, her tone clearly saying “I know you’re the medic but your expertise is limited to emergency situations and also when am I, the captain of a smuggling ship, going to find the time or money to check out a bum shoulder I’ve been living with longer than you’ve been alive”.

Or maybe Violet had made most of that up in her head because her poor coping mechanisms included over-interpreting people’s words. Hard to say. 

Sana gestured back over her shoulder. “I’ll check on the doors. Yell if you need me.”

“Will do.” Violet looked over the body. No sign of injuries from the fall. She removed her watch from a limp wrist and slid it on. The sensation felt familiar and unfamiliar at once, wires crossed between brain and body, but that wasn’t a rabbit hole her mind could afford to chase. Violet brought her hand down to what used to be her neck, losing herself in the welcome distraction of counting off the pulse thumping against her fingers as the seconds ticked by on her watch.

The body jolted, its hands tightly gripping Violet’s wrist. Violet froze. Her own face stared back at her, but the scowl at a perceived threat painted across it was unmistakably Arkady’s. Her expression quickly shifted to one of relief as she took in that it was only Violet - well, technically, as Arkady took in the presence of someone she thought was Sana. 

The hands around Violet’s wrist relaxed into a loose grasp, and Arkady frowned at her. Her throat shifted under Violet’s fingers as she spoke. “What the hell happened now?”

No need to check for a pulse anymore. Violet drew back her hand and fumbled for an explanation. “Uh, about that-”. 

Sana walked up next to Violet, bringing her face within Arkady’s view. Arkady started sputtering. “What in-”

“I’m Sana, in your body. Violet’s in your body. And you’re in Violet’s,” Sana interrupted. 

Arkady’s eyes widened and she immediately let go of Violet’s wrist to look over herself. Sana continued. “I looked around while Violet checked on you, but none of this makes any kind of sense to me. Doors aren’t locked, and it doesn’t look like any alarm have been tripped. Violet, any thoughts?”

“I’m thinking some kind of experiment malfunction, but not much more than that.” Violet stood up. “Those reports might have something.”

Her voice trailed off oddly. Now that she was standing again, that same sense of something being off about the room overwhelmed her. “Does anything seem weird to you guys about the room? Like something’s changed?”

Sana shook her head. Arkady reached an arm up the counter and pulled herself up to her feet, slight annoyance flickering in her eyes. 

“Room looks the same to me. Anything specific?” Arkady asked.

Violet squinted around the room in frustration. “No. It just looks wrong.”

“That is concerning,” said Sana.

“Liu,” Arkady grinned widely, and god, it was weird seeing her own face do that. Then Arkady’s voice grew smug and Violet wondered for not the first time if that was really what she sounded like. “Are you having trouble adjusting to the world of not being really frickin short?”

Oh. Sana was more than half a foot taller than her. A difference in viewing angle would explain Violet’s confusion, and neither of the other two had swapped across quite that large a height gap. A quick glance at Sana revealed her to be fighting a small smile. Violet scowled at Arkady, gritting the words out as slowly as she could. “You might. Possibly. Have a point.”

“You making that expression at me with the captain’s face? Way too weird. Let’s figure this out so we can all get back to ourselves and get the hell out of here,” Arkady wrinkled her nose, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Not a big fan of this whole bob haircut thing either.”

“Agreed on figuring this out.” Sana walked towards the glass dome in the center. She rotated her shoulder as she peered into it at the contraption within. “Though I can’t say I mind the decade-younger body too much.”

Arkady raised her eyebrows. “Hey, you're borrowing it. Don’t do anything with it that I wouldn’t.”

“You do realize that’s not particularly limiting, right?” said Sana.

Violet snorted. Arkady narrowed her eyes at her, and Violet shrugged. As far as she could tell, Sana had a point there. Huh. Maybe she ought to be worried about what Arkady might try to pull with her body. On second thought, Arkady probably wouldn’t be able to pull off even half her usual stunts in Violet’s body. Arkady knew that. Violet stifled another laugh at the mental image of herself bursting through a vent to land face first.

Sana coughed. “Moving on. I’ll examine this thing and the wiring around it, Arkady, you check the consoles again and Violet, the papers? Keep each other informed.”

The other two agreed, and they split off to separate parts of the lab once more. Violet rapidly skimmed through the mess on the counter, sorting them into piles. One for bureaucratic paperwork - budget details, grant proposals mired in incomprehensible jargon, etc. Another for lab notebooks with barely decipherable handwriting. A third pile would have been for summary documents - reports and the like, but there weren’t any to be found. It had been too much to hope that the IGR’s researchers would have left behind clean documentation of their creepy body-swap procedure. 

A loud crash from behind cause Violet to spin around. She pressed herself back against the counter as she took in the scene. Arkady, no, Sana in Arkady’s body was on one knee, gun drawn and aimed precisely at a fallen down pod. It must have gotten loose from the wall. Sana’s gaze, however, fixed on her own hands in confusion. 

Arkady, on the other hand, was fumbling with the gun in her hands, looking as disoriented as Violet would have imagined herself to if ever faced with holding a weapon. The empty holster strapped to Arkady’s jeans-clad thigh didn’t help the ridiculous sight. She must have taken one of the many holsters littering her actual body from Sana. Violet couldn’t fault Arkady for feeling a little defenseless in her current state. 

“Maybe I should take that back?” suggested Sana, slowly sheathing her gun. 

A look of grim resignation crossed Arkady’s face. She stripped off the holster and jammed the gun back in before passing it back to Sana. “Reflexes aren’t on my side. Probably safer.”

The sound of Arkady and Sana discussing the fallen pod to no conclusion filled the lab as Violet turned her attention to the most recently dated lab notebook. No mention of that contraption in the glass dome, or the pods. She looked through the others to no success. These notebooks probably hadn’t even originated from this room. Violet swallowed back the rising panic in her throat. She shook her head to focus herself, the low ponytail brushing against her neck an absurd, unnecessary reminder of the stakes.

“Shit,” hissed Sana, distracting Violet from her thoughts. Sana shook her hand loose, frowning at the wiring. She brushed off Arkady and Violet’s looks of concern. “Just a little shock, nothing to worry about. People really shouldn’t cut corners on insulation.”

“Anyone having any luck?” she continued. 

“Nothing here even hints at body-swapping, let alone how to undo it,” Violet said.

Arkady kept typing. “In their systems, but the code controlling the equipment is not something I’ve seen before. That’s saying something.”

“So far I’ve only found a poor wiring job.” Sana sighed. “It might be time to-”

A loud whirring noise filled the room and all three of them turned to the glass dome where it originated from. The metal device was spinning again, an arc of electricity sparking between the two pointed ends.

They looked at each other, and then everyone spoke once.

Violet started dropping towards the ground. “Get down now, if we get knocked out agai-”

Sana furrowed her brows at the dome. “Same behaviour as before, is it going to d-”

Arkady turned back to the consoles, barely hitting a couple of keys. “What’s controlling it? The screens have gone blan-”

Violet had barely pressed herself against the ground when a familiar heaviness took her eyelids and limbs, and she drifted off into unconsciousness once more.

* * *

Violet awoke next to a tangle of wires. As the memory of the day’s events came rushing back, she jerked her head down, relieved to see her own limbs and attire this time. She scrambled to her feet. 

Her back hurt like hell, but that’s what happened when you fell unconscious on tiled floor twice in not even as many hours. She ran a hand over her skull to feel for any worrying bumps. None.

She was okay, relatively speaking. Hopefully the other two were too. They were getting back on their feet and looking over themselves as well. Sana’s voice asked, “Everyone’s back in their own bodies?”

Violet and Arkady nodded. Sana let out a sigh. “Great. Trying to find out anything further really doesn’t seem worth that happening again.”

“Agreed,” said Arkady, “I’ll bring up the rear.”

She nodded towards the exit, which Sana moved towards. Violet dashed to the counter and scooped up the pile of bureaucratic papers before following suit. The door easily swung open, and the three of them made their way down the hallway.

“You couldn’t leave the science behind, huh Liu?” muttered Arkady from behind her.

“I think we can all agree that body-swapping is a really specific thing to research. Or even arrive at accidentally,” said Violet under her breath. “Something’s up.”

She clutched the pile of papers closer to her chest. Following the science had been a dead end. Time to follow the money. 


End file.
